The pressure on the entourage of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro increased on Monday January 29, 2024, with searches at the home of one of his sons as part of the investigation into suspicions of illegal spying on political opponents during his mandate.
“New searches were carried out in continuity” of an operation which took place on Thursday, “with the objective of investigating a criminal organization within the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (Abin)”said the federal police (PF) in a press release.
According to the judicial ruling which authorized the searches on Monday in several Brazilian states, one of the targets of these searches was Carlos Bolsonaro, municipal councilor of Rio de Janeiro and second of the four sons of the far-right ex-president .
Investigators suspect Abin of having used Israeli spyware called FirstMile to spy on hundreds of politicians and public figures during the Bolsonaro presidency (2019-2022).
The PF explained in its press release that this “new stage” of the operation launched Thursday targeted the “political core, to identify the main recipients and beneficiaries of information illegally produced by the Abin through clandestine acts”.
“Persecution”
The judicial ruling, signed by Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes, mentions in particular a request for information from Abin on investigations “involving the president (Bolsonaro) and three of his sons”.
A request made according to investigators in February 2020 by an assistant of Carlos Bolsonaro to a collaborator of Alexandre Ramagem, then head of the intelligence agency, during an exchange of messages on WhatsApp reproduced in the court document.
“One of my sons would never make such a request, and if he had, it would have been rejected by Mr. Ramagem”said Jair Bolsonaro on Monday, during an interview with the channel CNN Brazil a few hours after the searches.
According to him, his son Carlos will be interviewed by the police on Tuesday.
“I have never received any information about anyone’s whereabouts. I never needed, nor requested, nor obtained the slightest report from Abin”insisted the former president, saying he was a victim of “persecution”.
The former head of Abin, who is now a federal deputy in Mr. Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party, was the target of one of the 21 searches carried out Thursday in the context of this same affair.
Fishing trip
On Monday, police visited nine addresses in total, in the states of Rio de Janeiro (southeast), Goias (central west) and Bahia (northeast), as well as in the federal district of Brasilia.
Carlos Bolsonaro’s home in Rio de Janeiro and his office in the municipal assembly were searched.
Police also went to a residence where Jair Bolsonaro and his first three sons were in Angra dos Reis, a seaside town located about 150 km from Rio.
The third son of the ex-president, deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro, condemned ” excess “ committed according to him during the searches, denouncing legal action “illegal in addition to being immoral”.
He also denied rumors that the Bolsonaro clan had fled by boat after learning of the searches.
“As soon as they knew the PF was in the residence, Jair and Carlos came home”he assured.
One of the Bolsonaro family’s lawyers indicated on X (formerly Twitter) that they had embarked at dawn for a fishing trip.
Images from television GloboNews showed police officers leaving the Angra dos Reis house under the eyes of Jair Bolsonaro and his son Carlos, filmed in front of the front door.
The court document that gave the green light to the first searches named Judge Moraes among those who had been spied on, as did former President of the Chamber of Deputies Rodrigo Maia and Camilo Santana, governor of the northeastern state of Ceara. ) at the time and now Minister of Education under leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Sentenced to eight years of ineligibility last year for disseminating false information on the electronic voting system, Jair Bolsonaro, 68, has been surrounded by business, notably for corruption, since he lost the presidential election at the end of 2022 against to Lula.